The Body Shop

Previously featured on our employment blog, Tsering Dickyi continues to work hard to achieve her goals and dreams in life! After a year of working at her first employer from the previous blog, Tsering decided it was time to build on her skills and strengths, and look for a position where she could work with a team of people, spend more time interacting with customers, and that aligned with her values.

Tsering’s kindness and caring attitude is a constant theme in her life; she loves animals and cares for her dog at home. She has a very vivid memory of people feeding bananas to elephants when she was very young! Tsering is always concerned with the misfortune and wellbeing of others and is passionate about justice and fairness in all aspects of life. Tsering is excited to make a fair wage and work many hours to make enough money to pay taxes from her paycheck and help those less fortunate than herself.

Additionally, Tsering wanted to work somewhere more centrally located to access the bus line easily rather than relying on a rideshare app or family for transportation. Tsering has other goals she wants to accomplish so when looking for the next employment opportunity she wanted it to be conveniently located for when she begins to look for her own space. For several months, Tsering and her Employment Consultant visited local businesses, spoke with shop owners and employees, and learned about what went into keeping the shops running. At first, Tsering hoped to focus exclusively on behind-the-scenes positions, but as time went on she began to consider more customer service oriented positions, in order to maximize her opportunities to learn new skills and meet people!

In July, Tsering accepted a position at The Body Shop, a store that focuses on cruelty-free beauty supplies and social justice. Tsering learned about the company’s policies on their products; they allow no animal testing at any stage and are currently campaigning to outlaw animal testing for cosmetics worldwide. Tsering was thrilled to learn this and spoke at length about the hurt she feels when she learns that animals have been harmed. Her interest only piqued further when she learned about fair-trade practices, a subject which hits close to home, as Tsering remembers people working for very little money, as a child before she moved to the U.S.

Initially, Tsering was worried about taking a position that would require outgoing interactions with customers. After many years working in a sheltered workshop, she didn’t know if she was up for the challenge! Since her position is customized, Tsering is able to stick to what she is comfortable with to get started. She keeps all the shelves stocked and faced, and the store squeaky clean. She has told Brandon, her manager, that she would like to learn how to bring stock up from storage so that her coworkers can be available to work at the register, and she can often be found bagging customer purchases long before anyone asks. Not only that, but, despite her initial hesitations, Tsering greets all customers who enter, and does her best to help anyone who has a question. Tsering wants to learn the prices of all products, what recommendations to make, and possibly (with some encouragement from her manager) to learn to use the register some day. She has fit into her new position so quickly that it would not be surprising to see her operating the register very soon!

Tsering’s coworkers have only the highest praise for her, encouraging her to continue pushing herself, and offering support when Tsering is unsure of a process or procedure. Her manager stated, “I hardly have time to notice that something is out of place before Tsering has recognized the issue and fixed it. The store has never been so tidy!” Tsering has expressed, “They treat me like I’m normal, and not like I have a disability!” Although her co-workers would almost certainly protest the idea that they could be called normal, we are so glad to see her happy and comfortable in a new workplace!